NBA Regains Its Magic / HIV positive superstar will face Golden State

David Steele, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PST, Tuesday, January 30, 1996

1996-01-30 04:00:00 PDT Los Angeles -- This was no tease, and everybody knew it. From the dozens of TV camera operators circling a clutch of microphones in the lobby of the Lakers' practice gym, to the fans who packed two-deep along the 120-foot-long balcony rail above the practice floor, to the players themselves, who practiced as if they were preparing for the NBA Finals -- everyone was sure this time that Magic Johnson was back.

And yesterday, at about quarter-past high noon, Johnson said it himself. In person, not by fax as Michael Jordan had 10 months earlier. He stepped before the throng of reporters at Loyola Marymount University and said, "It's time to come back."

Earvin Johnson -- who on the day he retired was arguably the best basketball player on earth -- finally ended 4 1/2 years of speculation and public soul-searching by signing a contract for the rest of this season (reported to be about $2.5 million) and rejoining the franchise he has served since 1979 as an All-Star point guard, championship most valuable player, coach, vice president and part-owner.

He plays his first meaningful game since the fifth and final game of the 1991 Finals tonight, against the Warriors, at the Great Western Forum. The remaining 2,300 tickets available yesterday morning were sold within hours of news of his return, and the TNT cable network quickly arranged to broadcast the return nationally (Channel 5 carries the game in the Bay Area).

Back on Nov. 7, 1991, Johnson had walked away, still at or near his prime, because he had been diagnosed with HIV. The illness, obviously, has not gone away, but much of the resistance to his playing has disappeared. And so have his beliefs that -- at age 36 and nearly five years removed from a game he felt he was forced to leave -- he could put the NBA aside for good. Johnson has played in the NBA All- Star Game, the Olympics and in various national and international tours since his retirement, but as he said, "It's Michael, it's the big games. You miss playing those type of games, the competition."

Michael Jordan ended his retirement after a year-and-a-half and returned to the NBA last March at age 32. His Bulls beat the Lakers in Johnson's last game to win the first of three NBA titles, a sort of passing of the torch that was apparent even before the stunning news of the following November. The Bulls play at the Forum Friday.

Johnson has batted the idea of returning back and forth almost from the day he retired. His comeback try in the 1992-93 preseason was aborted when players raised doubts about possibly contracting the AIDS virus through contact with him. Now, he said, "I'm calm. I'm not worried about whether there is criticism or not. Before, you worried about that, but now I'm at peace with myself, I prayed on it, and I'm off that."

Johnson has worked out with the Lakers off and on since December, but as recently as January 8, he had voiced concerns about the poor attitudes in the team -- similar complaints to those he'd expressed during a 16-game stint as head coach at the end of the 1993-94 season. "I think we will never say never, but right now I'm not trying to come back," he said.

Yesterday, he said, his wife Cookie convinced him to finally make it official -- plus, he said, he wanted his children, 3- year-old Earvin and infant Elisa, to see him play in the NBA.

Johnson bought a minority interest in the Lakers from owner Jerry Buss in June, 1994, and he had to sell his interest back to Buss to become eligible to play. He also said he had to be sure his current teammates (two of whom he played with, six of whom he coached) would accept him. No problem, said coach Del Harris, who replaced Johnson last season. Harris told the players to tell Johnson themselves if they wanted him; the key players -- Nick Van Exel, Cedric Ceballos, Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell among them -- called him and convinced him of their sincerity.

"As much as he wanted it, he would not have forced himself back onto the ballclub," said Harris, adding that he knew Johnson would return about 10 days ago. Of the call, he said, "I know it touched Earvin a great deal that they would talk."

At a rock-hard 260 pounds, more than 25 above his playing weight in his prime, the 6-9 Johnson will be more of the low- post player he was becoming in the final years of his career. The term "point forward" -- a concept Harris and Don Nelson have employed for years -- has become popular around the team; Johnson will handle the ball as well as play inside. He acknowledges he's not in "NBA shape," but added, "I'm not coming back thinking I'm going to be Magic Johnson at the age of 26, 25; I would be stupid. But I am coming back with the fact that I still know how to play this game."

He returns to a Lakers team that has turned around a dismal start and is now 24-18. The team had also drawn only one sellout all season; the games tonight and Friday are now sold out.

"This has nothing to do with saving some team and some attendance," Harris insisted.

Johnson, in fact, said the team's recent winning ways convinced him to return: "Winning changes a whole lot of people, and our team has changed. And if it hadn't changed, those guys (on the team) wouldn't have called me. That made me feel good about coming back. I've been there five times. I know what it tastes like. I'd like to go one more time, or a couple more times, and they all want to get it."

"We have a good team already," said vice president Jerry West, who put together the five title teams of the 1980s. "And adding him to our team will help our team, there's no question about that. He may not be, the first four or five games, where he wants to be. (But) he will not embarrass himself at all."